Revenge Wears Prada (35 page)

“Hey there,” she said, collapsing into his open arms for the most natural-feeling hug in the world.

He kissed her on the cheek like an exuberant uncle—rough, excited, platonic. “I’m serious, Andy. Don’t go getting all conservative on me in your old age.”

“Old age?” she said, feigning outrage. “The last time I checked, you were two months older than me.”

He pushed her back but held her upper arms and made a long, slow show of carefully looking her up down. The obvious affection, the wide smile, that adorable head nod—it made her instantly comfortable. Confident even. Despite still being eight or ten pounds above her pre-pregnancy weight and overall jigglier than usual, she felt attractive.

“You look terrific, Andy. Glowing. And I hear I owe you a huge congratulations on baby Clementine.”

Andy looked at him, caught off guard by the warmness of his smile. He appeared genuinely happy for her. “Your mom?”

He nodded. “I hope it doesn’t freak you out, but she sent me those pictures of you in the hospital the first few days. I guess your mom was so excited she forwarded them to everyone in her address book. Anyway, your daughter is beautiful and you and your husband looked very, very happy.”

“Anything else I can do for you two?” the receptionist asked.

“Sorry, we’re leaving. Thanks for everything.”

She followed Alex outside. She tried to focus on the present moment, but her mind kept cycling through the hospital pictures from Clem’s birth: Andy, minutes postpartum, looking all sweaty and makeup-less and pale; Clementine first covered in blood and vernix and then cleaned up but still ruddy and cone headed; a stubble-faced Max looking alternately like he wanted to throw up and kiss someone. They were photos of possibly the most intimate time of their entire lives, and Alex had seen them. She wanted to kill her mother, really punish her, even while a tiny, deeply buried part of her was happy Alex had gotten to share that.

“Where are you headed?” he asked. “Do you have time for a coffee?”

Andy glanced at her watch, but she knew full well she would agree no matter the time. Besides, why get to work before everyone else? “Um, yeah, that would be great. I’m only just back at work full-time, so it probably doesn’t matter if I’m a little late.”

Alex smiled and offered his arm, which Andy accepted. In one block they passed a Starbucks, an Au Bon Pain, and a Le Pain Quotidien, and Andy wondered where they were headed.

“How has it been being back to work?” Alex asked as they walked. It was already getting cold, and Andy could see her breath form little clouds, but the sun was bright and shining and the morning felt a little bit hopeful.

In his very first question, Alex had hit on the topic at the forefront of Andy’s every waking moment. Three days in and it was still torturous leaving Clem. Still, she felt she shouldn’t complain. Being her own boss, the hours were reasonable and flexible, and she would never have to miss a doctor’s appointment or a sniffly nose. Isla was an absolute dream whom Andy trusted completely, and her mother planned to spend an afternoon a week caring for her granddaughter and making sure all ran
smoothly at home. She had the financial means to hire great help, the support of family and an involved husband, and an easy, adaptable baby who stuck happily to her schedule of eating, sleeping, and playing. And it was
still
hard to balance it all. How did women do it with multiple children, grueling hours, low pay, and minimal or no help? Andy couldn’t even fathom it.

“It’s been good,” she said automatically. “I’m really lucky to have a great husband and nanny. They’ve both made it a lot easier.”

“I would imagine it’s never easy leaving that little person every day. Of course it must be wonderful to get out of the house, talk to adults, focus on your own work every day. But you must miss her.”

He said it plainly, with empathy and no judgment. Andy’s throat threatened to close.

“I miss her so much,” she said, trying not to cry. She thought of Clementine right then, most likely spending a little time kicking around on her play mat before getting a warm bottle and going in for her first nap of the day. She would wake up happy and cooing, her face pink and warm and pressed from sleep, her hair mussed in the most adorable way. If she closed her eyes, Andy could smell her neck, feel her velvety skin, picture those perfect apple cheeks. And although he obviously didn’t have children of his own, something told her Alex understood.

Alex ushered her down a flight of stairs and into a nearly hidden bakery that felt like a combination of an illicit speakeasy and a Parisian café. They claimed the lone empty table and Andy checked her phone as Alex ordered at the counter for them.

“The usual?” he asked, and she nodded.

“Here you go.” He set a frothy decaf latte in front of her, the kind that looked more like a soup bowl than a coffee mug, and took a sip from his iced Americano. It felt like not a single minute had elapsed since the last time they’d seen each other.

“Thank you,” Andy said, licking the foam as delicately as she
could manage. “Okay, now it’s your turn. You can start by telling me how you know about this adorable little coffee shop that’s exactly six blocks from my apartment when I’ve never even seen it.”

“I wish there was a story that made me seem cooler, but I actually read about it in a guidebook.”

Andy raised her eyebrows.

“I moved back to the city this past fall and felt totally out of the loop. So I bought one of those
Not for Tourists
guides or whatever you call them, the ones that are totally for tourists? And they suggested this place as somewhere only locals and insiders go.”

“I’m buying the damn guide the second I get to a computer,” Andy said with a grin. She paused, took another sip. “So where do you live now?”

“In the West Village. Christopher and the highway? I guess it used to be kind of seedy, but it’s completely gentrified now.”

“And you do your dry cleaning in Chelsea?” Andy couldn’t help asking.

Alex gave her a look, an amused one that seemed to say
I’m onto you.
“No, I don’t do my dry cleaning in Chelsea. I’m going to see an exhibit at the Rubin Museum. I just happened to see you from the sidewalk and came in.”

“The Rubin Museum?”

“Himalayan art? Seventeenth and Seventh? Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of that one either.”

“Of course I have!” Andy said, too indignantly, especially since she walked by it nearly every day and had yet to step inside. “So what brings you back to the city? You just finished your degree, right? I think my mom mentioned that. Congratulations!”

If it felt as strange for Alex as it did for Andy that they knew details about each other’s lives through their mothers, he didn’t let on. “Yeah, I finished in the spring and stayed in Vermont over the summer to just hang out and relax. I moved back at the end of August, which was every bit as hot and hellish as you’d imagine,
and I’ve been getting reacquainted with the city. I can’t get over how much has changed since . . . since the last time I lived here.”

They were both quiet for a moment, remembering. “Yeah, but New York never really changes. It just feels different living downtown, I think,” Andy said.

“Maybe. Or maybe you and I were both working so much then that we didn’t get to explore a lot. I’ve had a couple months now with nothing to do but wander. I start work next week. I thought I’d be excited, but I’m actually kind of bummed.”

Andy sipped her coffee and tried not to think about the fact that Alex had yet to reference any kind of significant other. He’d stuck solely to the
I
pronoun and hadn’t mentioned the girlfriend as a reason to stay in Vermont for the summer, a reason to move to New York, or someone who had factored into his months of seemingly solo city wandering. Andy’s mother had insisted they were close to getting married, but it sure didn’t seem that way now. Maybe it was over between them?

“Why are you smiling like that?” Alex asked, smiling right back at her.

Horrified at the thought that he might be able to read her mind, she quickly shook her head. “No reason. You said you’re starting work on Monday? Whereabout?”

“A new school in the West Village. It’s called Imagine. I’ll be helping design their curriculum before they open, and then I’ll be the vice principal.”

“Imagine, Imagine . . . why do I know that name?” Andy racked her brain. “Is it that the elite private international school where a kid can move from New York to Shanghai to wherever else bond traders live and not miss a single class?”

“That’s the one.”

“Yeah, they just had a big article about it in the
Times.
Isn’t there some thousand-person wait list even though it costs like fifty grand for kindergarten?”

“It’s on par cost-wise with other private schools in Manhattan.
It just sounds like more because they’ve instituted a year-round schedule. Studies show that summer break causes students to fall drastically behind their Asian counterparts, who do not take three months off a year.”

Andy reached across the table and poked him in the upper arm. She couldn’t help but notice it felt rock-hard. The old Alex occasionally went for a jog or played a pickup game of basketball, but it looked like the new Alex actually worked out. “Are you telling me that you’re the vice principal of the fanciest, snootiest, most expensive for-profit preparatory school in the United States, Mr. Teach for America?”

Alex smiled ruefully. “It’s actually the third-most expensive in the world. And the first two are ours, too—one in Hong Kong and one in Dubai. They cost even more. But I have to say, it’s a really amazing program.”

Andy looked down at the table and then back up at Alex, who was fiddling with a straw wrapper. She was torn between treading carefully with this person she hadn’t seen in years and laying it all out on the line in the honest, straightforward way she and Alex had always prided themselves on. “Sounds like a change from what you’re used to. Are you happy about it?”

Her words must have hit harder than she’d anticipated, because Alex visibly flinched. “Like I said, it’s a great program and a good opportunity. Would I have preferred to stay in the nonprofit realm? Probably. But I was earning barely enough to support myself, and . . . I’m getting too old for that.”

So there it was. He hadn’t stated it explicitly yet, but he didn’t really need to. Alex needed to take a job that paid because he either was, or wanted to be, someone’s husband.

She almost said a thousand things, but not one of them sounded right or appropriate. Just as she was about to murmur a “hmm” or an “I understand,” Alex said, “Ever since my girlfriend’s brother had a baby, it’s all she can talk about. And from what I hear, babies are pretty expensive.”

“They sure are” was all she could think to say, and she was surprised she had managed even that. They’d been doing so well . . . flirty without crossing any lines, mutually excited to see each other, equally interested in one another’s lives.
But a baby?
Considering she was married herself with a healthy baby girl, Andy knew she was hardly entitled to be deflated by this news. Any reasonably decent person would be happy that Alex, whom she would always love and adore, had found his own happiness. And yet she felt a bit sick.

Her phone rang, and never before had she been so grateful, but when she saw it was Emily calling, she hit “ignore” and tossed it in her bag.

“Did your caller ID just say that was Emily Charlton?” Alex asked.

“The one and only.”

“I still can’t believe you two became friends—it blows my mind. All I remember is you hating each other.”

“Not only friends—best friends. And business partners. We reunited in a cooking class and had a powerful thing in common: she hated Miranda as much as I did.”

Andy stopped. She suddenly realized what had changed between them. The cooking-class Emily would have called Miranda exactly as she saw her: a stark-raving-mad tornado of a woman who was intent on leaving devastation and destruction in her wake. Someone to be avoided at all costs. Now, instead of sharing Andy’s misery at the idea of once again working for that lunatic, Emily had reverted back to her
Runway
self: the girl who had worshipped Miranda and aspired to work for her from childhood. Emily’s stay on the anti-Miranda train had been brief: once Miranda showed the slightest bit of interest in
The Plunge,
Emily had instantly forgiven the woman for firing her, humiliating her, and crushing her dreams. Emily was actually looking forward to meeting with Miranda and the Elias-Clark people to brainstorm and see how they might work together. When Andy joked she
might open fire at the meeting and take everyone down with her, Emily had shrugged her shoulders and said, “What? Have you ever considered that maybe we’ve been overreacting all these years? That she’s not going to win any charm awards, but she’s really not the devil incarnate?”

Andy’s phone bleated again. She checked, unwillingly. Emily.

“Maybe you should get that?”

Andy checked her watch. It was only a little after nine. She knew Emily would be calling to see when they could begin discussions.

“I’ll see her at the office in a little.”

Now Alex looked at his watch. “I need to hear more about your magazine. I’ve bought a bunch of the issues, do you know that? Look, the Rubin doesn’t open until ten. Do you have time for a quick breakfast?”

Andy must have looked dumbfounded or, at the very least, generally confused, because Alex continued. “There’s a decent diner around the corner where we could get something more than a muffin. What do you say? Do you have a few more minutes?”

All she wanted to ask was if he’d seen the issue that featured her own wedding, but instead she said, “Sure. Breakfast sounds great.”

They settled at a booth in the back of the Chelsea Diner, and Andy tried to suppress the weird feeling of being there with Alex. Just the weekend before she and Max had brought Clementine there at six thirty on Saturday morning; it was the only neighborhood place that was open. Now she looked across the way to the table they had occupied, almost willing Clementine to appear, kicking and grinning in her infant car seat, to snap her back to reality. The phone buzzed again. Emily. Again, she pushed “ignore.”